Processes of the initially mentioned type can be gathered, e.g., from DE-OS 35 42 757. In the previously described process especially for the production of nonalcoholic wine first an aromatic fraction, in which ethanol is also contained, is recovered by extraction with supercritical CO.sub.2. The remaining wine is then subjected to a vacuum distillation, in which, besides the almost complete separation of the ethanol from the remaining wine, a fraction of aromatic substances, difficult to extract, not picked up by the extraction, can be recovered, which in the end, together with the extract, can again be added to the dealcoholized remaining wine to produce a nonalcoholic wine.
In this above-described process, the entire amount of the feedstock is subjected to high-pressure extraction, by which expensive and amply dimensioned devices are necessary for the high-pressure extraction. Caused by the high mass flow in the high-pressure part of such a unit considerably operating costs and operating material costs result and, naturally, greater amounts of CO.sub.2 are also used. Moreover, in high-pressure extraction of the entire mass flow before distillation there is the danger of an unstable operating performance because of the tendency to foaming in the boundary layer in the extractor.
With the flavor and aromatic substances of an alcoholic beverage forming the bouquet, a great number of different substances are involved, including higher alcohols, esters aldehydes, ketones, lactones, acids, etc., whose total content in the nonalcoholic beverage, for example in the case of wine, is about 0.5 to 1 per thousand of the volume. A part of these flavor and aromatic substances is easily volatile, and the boiling points are partially above and partially below the boiling point of ethanol. In the extraction with supercritical carbon dioxide, ethanol portions, too, are always extracted besides aromatic substances and in principle the possibility exists of influencing the selectivity of the extraction by influencing the extraction conditions. However, a variation of the mass flow ratio of the extraction column is possible only to a limited extent and especially in view of the possibility of an unstable operating performance and foaming is feasible only to a limited extent.